“But—” Dominic groped for words. “It’s been years. You just said he was in love elsewhere.” “So he tells me, dear fellow, but you know, I think Richard is very well used to having your heart, if not the rest of you. You, or at least his youthful idea of you, have long been the ideal against which the rest of us are found wanting. And now his lost love is hopelessly smitten not just with any other man but with a bravo from the slums of Ludgate. One can see why he finds that trying.”
